PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has smashed her own record as the most unpopular leader that Filipinos ever had in the past 22 years that span four administrations.The plunge in Ms Arroyo’s net public satisfaction rating to negative 38 points from 26 three months ago, as tracked by Social Weather Stations in its 2008 second quarter poll survey, represented a 12-point dive.

It surpassed her previous low of negative 33 points in May 2005, when her administration was rocked by political turbulence sparked by her intervention in the Commission on Elections count of results of the 2004 presidential election.

The SWS’ June 27-30, 2008, survey result marked the fourth consecutive quarterly drop in Ms Arroyo’s net rating since June 2007.

This suggests that the erosion of Ms Arroyo’s public satisfaction rating has taken an apparently irreversible momentum during the past 12 months.

If the administration were operating under a parliamentary system, this steep plunge and the downward trend in Ms Arroyo’s ratings would have sparked a parliamentary vote of no confidence and calls for a change of government.

The broad compass of dissatisfaction is highlighted by the fact that for the first time, Ms Arroyo’s record low ratings cut across all regions and socioeconomic classes.

The SWS survey found that dissatisfaction was at “majority levels” in all regions—63 percent in Metro Manila, 62 percent in Mindanao, 60 percent in Luzon outside Metro Manila, and 56 percent in the Visayas.

Electoral bastions gone

The survey found that the widespread discontent over Ms Arroyo has erased several regions (e.g., Western and Eastern Visayas) as her electoral bastions.

It found dissatisfaction worsening in all socioeconomic classes. The upper classes (ABC) are just as dissatisfied now as the poorer class (D).

Ms Arroyo’s net satisfaction rating plunged most steeply among the middle-to-upper classes (ABC). It fell by 23 points among the ABC classes, from minus 14 in March to minus 37 in June. Her previous record low among the ABC classes was minus 34 points in May 2005. It had been positive in February, June and September 2007.

Such a finding offers cold comfort on the stability of the administration and sparks fresh doubts whether it could complete its term peacefully in 2010.

A high level of discontent among the middle and upper classes is political TNT. They are the most active in voicing grievances and initiating political action, and own resources to finance such action.

Compared with the lows in the net satisfaction ratings of previous Presidents since 1986, Ms Arroyo’s record shades those of her predecessors.

President Corazon Aquino, at her worst net satisfaction rating, hit plus 7 points in November 1990 and again in April 1992. President Fidel Ramos’ slumped to plus one in October 1995, but his rating never went negative. President Joseph Estrada’s plummeted to plus five in December 1999 and March 2000, when he was swamped by corruption charges.

Over a seven-year period from March 2001 to June 2008, Ms Arroyo posted a total of 18 negative net satisfaction ratings out of a total of 36.

Most reviled

This dissatisfaction record has raised questions about what is it in Ms Arroyo that has attracted widespread revulsion. Why is she the most reviled President today?

The 12-point slump within three months (March-June) has unnerved administration officials. It also was greeted with incredulity in Palace circles. They wonder why Ms Arroyo’s ratings fell in spite of the largesse distributed by the administration over the past several months.

One Palace official flippantly remarked, “It’s lonely up there.” It was lonely as well for Presidents Aquino, Ramos and Estrada.

Palace officials are puzzled why Ms Arroyo’s ratings suffered despite the fact that she had been working very hard.

But Filipinos have never rated the performance of their Presidents according to their work habits. Estrada was a lazy leader and spent more time with his drinking buddies than at his desk, and yet he remained largely popular. Work ethic is a wrong measure to explain unpopularity or popularity.

VAT as a tool

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita wondered why Ms Arroyo had a persistent negative public perception despite the “many things she has been doing for the well-being of our citizens.”

Ermita cited the billions of pesos that has been released or earmarked by the administration since January to enable the poor to buy cheap rice and pay for the high electricity costs, as well as for the subsidies of transport drivers.

Perhaps the beneficiaries think the subsidies taken from the expanded value-added tax (VAT) bonanza were not enough to provide enduring relief.

Did Ermita ever think that the beneficiaries were offended that the administration, using VAT revenues, was buying them off for a pittance to prevent them from being recruited for protests over high fuel and food prices?

Handouts not working

Another official attributed Ms Arroyo’s low rating to the global food and fuel crisis over which the administration had no control. True, Ms Arroyo’s rating plunged during a period of rising food and fuel prices.

The question the administration should ask itself is: What should it do to roll back the precipitous fall of its ratings? Apparently, it has not come up with effective responses.

Obviously, cash handouts or subsidies for the poor have not worked. The Arroyo administration has run out of policy options and tools to arrest rising public discontent, except cash subsidies.

The key question is what responses Ms Arroyo can offer to save her remaining base of political legitimacy and her administration from collapse.

The ratings will continue to sink as the inflation of fuel and food prices remains unabated. There is no relief in sight to ease pressure on the ratings.

Public judgment

Ms Arroyo brushed aside the survey, saying, “Let the people, not the surveys, judge my performance.”

The surveys are already an expression of public judgment of her performance. They are an unofficial manifestation of a widespread non-confidence vote in the administration. It reveals the existence of a marshalling ground for snowballing protests against an increasingly ineffective and impotent administration.

The rock-bottom unpopularity of Ms Arroyo further reveals that she does not enjoy a broad base of public confidence from which she could demand sacrifices from her people and make them take the hard medicine needed to combat the ravages of inflation.

The survey reveals that the Arroyo administration sits precariously on the broad base of a disgruntled population. It sends the message: Quit now before you lose your head.

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